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Spider-Man has fought many villains over the decades, including the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and the Vulture, among others. However, there is one villain that dominates all of these: corporate shenanigans.
By now, most Marvel fans understand that Disney-owned Marvel Studios does not own the screen rights to Spider-Man. Sony does. And that’s been a thorn in fans’ sides, especially since the deal between Sony and Disney to share the character fell apart for some time last year. This has led fans to wonder if the web-slinger will really be part of the Marvel family.
A brief history of Sony, Spider-Man and Disney
Entire books could be written just about the Sony / Spidey / Disney tangle, but to lay the groundwork, it’s important to understand why fans are confused, upset, or both. When people refer to Marvel movies these days, they’re usually talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, which have been booming since 2008. However, Spider-Man lives outside of those movies.
Sony bought the screen rights to Spider-Man in the 1990s. At first they were going to make a film with a screenplay by James Cameron, but it never got off the ground. Once Fox’s X-Men franchise became a big hit 20 years ago, it gave Sony the impetus to launch their own superhero movie series, and they made the highly successful trilogy with Tobey Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi.
Then Sony felt the need to reboot the franchise, and generally speaking, Andrew Garfield’s films weren’t as popular as Tobey Maguire’s films, and the perception was that the franchise was adrift.
At that time, Disney’s Marvel movies were doing well, so Sony and Marvel made a deal to share the character. Sony would still make the films with Spider-Man as the main character, but he could also appear as a supporting actor in the Disney films.
That arrangement fell through last year when Disney and Sony couldn’t agree on the money, before a last-minute backup at least in part devised by Tom Holland. This argument left a bad taste in the mouths of fans.
What does Sony have besides Spider-Man?
RELATED: Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Is A Fan Favorite Because He Acts ‘Like A Regular Teenager’
Since that breakup in 2019, fans have debated in numerous forums how Sony and Marvel might share the character in the future. Some have even speculated that maybe Disney should buy Sony just like they bought Fox, but that seems highly unlikely. One Reddit fan said, “Sony will never sell Spider-man. Never. They’ve already lost James Bond, that’s the only major Ip they have.
This is not true for several reasons. First, Sony never really “got” James Bond. These rights have always been held by Eon Productions, which works through MGM. Sony distributed the Daniel Craig Bond films, but lost those rights to Universal for the next No time to die.
Second, Sony has the rights to more than Spider-Man or (at one point) 007. They also own the rights to Ghostbusters, the men in black, and Jumanji, whose reboot movies were big hits.
However, not many people would dispute that Spider-Man is Sony’s greatest cash cow, and the company isn’t about to let him go without a really nice paycheck and / or a set of extraordinary circumstances. Thus, the two films of Tom Holland Spider-Man are not about to appear on Disney + in America for example.
Do we know Spider-Man’s future for sure?
All of this gives fans the impression that Spider-Man, despite being the very face of the Marvel comics, is not entirely a part of the MCU.
A fan on Reddit posted a video showing Tom Holland’s films as part of the Disney + lineup, but it was an advertisement for the territories in Latin America, where the rights aren’t quite the same.
One fan pointed out that Disney not owning Spider-Man might actually be advantageous, writing, “I don’t want Disney to own all of the Marvel properties because that would make it unlikely to see another wonder movie that isn’t PG. 13, except for maybe Deadpool. We would probably never have another Logan anytime soon, say under Disney.
So, for now, Sony and Disney are sharing the character with the third Holland Spider-Man movie, which recently started filming. Meanwhile, Sony is moving forward with characters from Marvel’s Sony Pictures universe, which include the upcoming Venom suite and the Morbius film, as well as a sequel to Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse.
So we will see a lot of products related to Spider-Man. It’s just that for now, only one pending movie is part of the MCU.
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